“This aggression will not stand“¹

by Pat Nevan, with additional writing by Peter Atkinson

Just got done reading and re-reading the Ogor Mawtribes article. Suffice to say I was a bit underwhelmed. Fired off a few angry tweets. Bent a few ears in the Craichouse Discord. People with a more Glass-Half-Full outlook than me were accentuating the positive but the overall response was definitely like taking a big bite out of a Shit Sandwich. I kind of predicted not much was going to happen for the Dadbods in 4th Ed recently but this was pretty damned underwhelming. I’m not the only Craichead writer with a dog in this fight so hopefully I can get some of the others to pitch in. Let’s have a look see at what we got.

Allegiance Abilities

I’ll keep this short, obviously, as the fairly limited allegiance abilities of the Ogor Mawtribes got pruned down to three in order to keep things ultra simple for the TikTok-addled attention span of the Gen Z types 4th Ed is apparently pitched at.²

All rules credit: GW

So the charge mortals got their 4th Ed glow down. Apparently the math and rules writing complexity involved in rolling a number of dice equal to your unmodified charge roll to hit a target number that varied by unit size, type and subfaction was way too difficult. Luckily it has been simplified: whatever you charge with gets 2 or 3 mortals (or nothing 1/3rd of the time). Take the advertised subfaction and you get plus one to the total. Huzzah, your Stonehorn does 4 mortals or nothing at all.

Those of you in Rebuttal Land will undoubtedly be muttering about the edition-wide reduction in mortal wounds, and fair enough, but this represents a pretty severe reduction in fun for the Dad Bods. Spiking and whiffing charge mortals is one of the things we love about them. Every Ogor player has stories of improbably triumph and failure on the charge. This new mechanism is the sort of dull mathematical crap that belongs in an Order faction. Also it will be a bit of a theme in this article, but having an allegiance ability that fails 1/3rd of the time is pretty bad, if it’s the only thing you do.

Should have got this team in to Crunch the Numbers

This one seems to have replaced Hungry and Eating. Getting rid of them is a damned shame as they were some of the coolest, most thematic rules in the game, but what you gonna do? The optimists seem to think that Mawtribes will gain access to run and charge through other means in their faction. The pessimists think this is basically a facton-wide speed debuff for an army that wasn’t super quick to begin with. Don’t let it get you down, it won’t be around for too long anyway because of…

The Shill article seems intent on bigging this one up like it is some sort of Super Saiyan³ power up but I’m not really seeing it. If you’re in combat you have a 2/3 chance of getting a minor heal and dishing out a couple of non-stacking mortals. You lose the run bonus for the rest of the game but activate some buffs on your warscroll if you have ’em à la Gluttons. Big fucking deal.

You get 2/3rds of your allegiance abilities in a once-per-game light tickle of the balls, and that’s pretty much it. Perhaps every game will be a white knuckle tactical contest of when you trade your running advantage for your minor heal. Perhaps you will wait till you have the maximum number of units in combat so you can roll a bunch of 1’s and 2’s and get no use whatsoever out of half your allegiance abilities.

From a purely thematic point of view, remembering that Verisimilitude matters, why is this a once a game ability? The hunger of the Mawtribes is famously insatiable, and here they are eating once a game? What the hell? I am seriously hoping there is some way to reset this in the expanded allegiance abilities, but it is underwhelming on a lot of levels.

Battle Formations

The one listed gives you an extra charge mortal for BCR monsters which is ok. As a veteran shit talker I appreciate the placement of the words “if any” at the end of the sentence. The other ones mentioned seem to let Leadbelchers fire in combat, so Underguts. Something for Butchers, so Bloodgullet, and one that seems interesting which lets Gutbusters benefit from BCR Everwinter stuff. Something that has been missing from previous editions which I’m fairly hopeful for. This is all pretty reasonable for what 4th Ed indexes are shaping up to be.

Arcana and Incantations

Other than the fluff this is the only listed prayer and it’s actually pretty damned good at replicating the environmental effects that were present with the BCR in their 1st Edition format. For anyone unfamiliar with the new terrain rules this is Obscuring:

Pretty cool stuff if you happen to have a few Priests running around (noting that it’s Unlimited) and as noted below they do have Huskard Priests in the locker. Keywording the Blizzard token in bold leads me to believe that there may be more than one way to get them. I’m thinking a command trait for a BCR general or something along those lines, so I’m pretty optimistic for this one.

Nothing but high hopes and promises for the Gutbuster magic, but oh well.

Warscrolls

Kragnos End of Empires

Not an Ogor. To me this guy is the basic bitch of list building and strictly for talentless hacks. I look forward to seeing less of him in Ogors lists now that he can’t buff charge mortals. If one of my fellow Craichouse writers wants to chime in they are welcome to. Should have given us the Gnoblar warscroll, you cowards.

Huskard on Stonehorn

Ah the poor fella. It has been a long slow decline from the glory days of AOS 1 for the noble Stonehorn. From halving damage, to a 5 up ward to reducing one point of damage per phase. A Stone Skeleton just ain’t what it used to be. Couple that with the feeble No-Fun charge mortals, reduced movement, no more tap dancing Monstrous Rampage, a nerfed Blood Vulture⁴ and it’s all looking a bit Fury Road.

Go see Furiosa by the way, great movie!

Aside from that, what do we actually have with the all new Stonehorn? Its overall output will probably improve without bracketing, although they kept the random damage on the hooves and the single damage from the rider just to make sure Mawtribes players stay angry at life in general. Seriously, why would any Ogor do one fucking point of damage? Aren’t we supposed to have racial stat profiles now? The new Rampage is interesting and positions the Huskard as a real leader of a charge of other monsters or Mournfang Cavalry. He also fucks with the same from the enemy mounts which will hurt, as most of that stuff hits on 4’s and 5’s now. Very useful rule. I will be interested to see if this is the generic Stonehorn rampage or if the other versions get their own. BCR players will forgive a lot if they can still spam their Monster Trucks without too much Once a Game (Army) nonsense.

Again the Rampage works on a 3 up, so have fun with that. Although assuming the Slaughtermaster and Ironblaster keep their Gnoblar helpers they will probably have the Companion keyword, meaning you might be able to get them double critting if you charge them in beside this guy, so huzzah for that. Rhinox certainly will for Ironblasters and the like. Shout out to the first Ur-Chad who can live the dream and get six hits from his Gnoblar assistants.

Gluttons

Sigh. I know, I know everything is hitting on 4’s now but still. As Binek said in the Measured Gaming chat ‘Wounding on 2’s is awesome, shame I’ll never get to use it.’ It does seem to be the default racial ability for Ogors and it’s not a bad one. These guys are pretty much as they were. Find a plus one attack and they will churn and burn convincingly. Slap a -1 to hit debuff on them and they will flail around like toddlers on meth. Hitting on 4’s is a Curse. Damage them and they will disintegrate like the plodding fat cannons they are. Output has been nerfed in 4th Ed but its seems to be mainly through reduced rend and converting ranged mortals to regular damage, which makes bugger all difference to these shirtless Himbos.

Nerfed charge mortals, a minor once-a-game heal and counting as 3 on objectives seem to have the writers of this article jizzing in their pants but as a long term Dad Bods enthusiast, I’m not seeing it. Like everything else it will all come down to the points cost and the buffs you can stack on them. At least you don’t have to worry about Battleshock anymore, and that’s not nothing.

Gorger Mawpack

It’s a fitting acknowledgement from GW to the entrenched cynics of its customer base that the newest and most expensive models in its range got the glow up this edition.⁵ With an extra attack, an extra wound, anti-infantry rend and warscroll-based off board deployment, Gluttons will need good buffs or aggressive pricing to compete with these scrawny freaks of Ogor nature.

I can only assume there are some solid buffs they are missing out on without the Gutbuster or BCR keyword, but you will be seeing more of these guys. It is an absolute truckload of wounds and damage for a reserve deploying unit, so who cares about a 6 up save?

Honorable mention – Leadbelchers

If anyone wants to have a go at the Spearhead section good luck to them. I thought I’d just take a look at the guts of the Leadbelcher scroll. They kept the random attacks because “Fun” but replaced the stationary bonus with plus 1 to hit for not moving. Oh, and dropped the range to 15″, effectively splitting the difference between the initial 12 and the recent 18. Take that, most indifferent shooting unit in the game.

I dunno, you might see these guys to take advantage of shooting shennanigans. Maybe the Underguts subfaction will give them some juice. You will get the plus 1 to hit effectively cancelling out the penalty for Counterfire in the enemy turn. 8 Leaddies would get you, oh 5 or 6 saves at -1 rend back of the envelope. Eh. Points and buffs.

In Conclusion

So what are my thoughts on the Mawtribes preview. If I could express it in Fury road Gifs⁶ my initial reaction was:

‘Nooooooooooo!’

But after a few deep breathing exercises, a brief period of mourning, a closer reading of the article and some reflection on the trajectory of late-stage Capitalism I’ve come around to a Classic.

“Mediocre”

It’s just more of the same for a faction that has never known the loving touch of the full ass of Games Workshop. Some of you in Reader Land might be wondering how I can make a judgement on the faction without all of the information at my disposal and you have a point, things may be very different when we have the full index. On the other hand I don’t have the full subscription to your mother’s Only Fans account, and even though I’ve only looked at the free stuff, I can still make an educated guess about what’s behind the paywall – and it’s probably not where she uploads the notes on her quantum physics lectures. Much like your mother, this isn’t my first rodeo.

Honestly I hope I’m wrong, and Ogors aren’t serving out their time in Mid purgatory before they get squatted in 5th ed. Still, if this article is the Sizzle, it doesn’t say much for the Steak.

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1. As previously established if Lebowski played AOS he would definitely run Ogors. ↩︎
2. I generally steer clear of generational baiting but I’ve had a few cups of coffee this morning and you have to let the rant take you where it will. No offense to the young folks, seriously. Vape on you Princes of Maine, you Kings of New England. ↩︎
3. See youngsters, I’m reaching out dammit. ↩︎
4. Shout out to GW for nerfing the most popular weapon loadout. Got to respect the classics. ↩︎
5. Glad I bought mine before this dropped, just quietly. ↩︎
6. And everything can be expressed in Mad Max gifs ↩︎

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Peter Atkinson writes…

I was planning on chiming in on a “Good Cop, Bad Cop” basis, where I would be forced to play the Good Cop, but the best I could realistically muster is Deflated Cop to his Surprisingly Reasonable Cop.  What will the power level of this army be once the dust settles? Fucked if I know. But it really feels like the fat lads have had a lot of the joy sucked out of them regardless of what tier they eventually land in.

So if we’re playing the game called “Sentences you are shocked you had to say”, I’d rank “I actually agree with a lot of what Pat has said” right up there alongside “I won’t fill up the car today, I’ll just put a hundred bucks in it”.  And yet here we are.

Charge mortals aren’t just worse than before, they’re way less exciting, and our army became road kill standing in the way of the universal countercharge. Long-term Ogor players (like me) remember only too well the days when GW were too lazy to give Gutbusters a single page of band-aid rules – in consecutive GHBs, mind you, year after year. And now this reveal is as flat as a tack, so why would we be excited?  Don’t piss on my head and tell me it’s raining.

Gorgers look sick, so if anyone knows a good 3D print (or cheap proxy) for those scrawny bastards, let me know. I’ll be fucked if I’m letting GW strongarm me into rebuying my Ogors army, just because they’ve rotated the gas onto a new kit’s warscroll.  And I’ll sign off by accepting Pat’s challenge to write up the Kragnos changes early next week.

Have a good weekend, nerds – catch you on the other side.

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